


It Came From Outer Space

by cher



Category: Northern Exposure
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dubious Science, Gen, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/pseuds/cher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've always been an appreciate-the-sunrise kind of guy, but there's something a little bit special about what might be the last one I see from where I sit. This is 'Chris in the Morning' on KBHR, and I wish you a happy apocalypse."</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Came From Outer Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hilandmum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilandmum/gifts).



"The sun is rising over Cicely, and it looks like we're going to have a beautiful day. Today I can't help but appreciate the light breaking over Main Street; the way I can see the Brick emerging from the shadows of dawn.  
  
"I've always been an appreciate-the-sunrise kind of guy, but there's something a little bit special about what might be the last one I see from where I sit. This is 'Chris in the Morning' on KBHR, and I wish you a happy apocalypse."  
  
Chris paused to pick up the note he'd scribbled on the back of the handbill for Ed's last screening.  
  
"Maurice heard from his pals at NASA overnight, and they tell us that Holling's meteor is still on track to impact Cicely at around 2PM this afternoon.  
  
"So those of you who are leaving town, good luck go with you. Me, I'm going to stay. This town is a brother to me, and after all, if I'm going to die someday, then why not witness something amazing in the process.  
  
"Funny thing about meteors. We're talking about a hunk of metal and rock that's been tumbling for millennia through empty space. Parts of that rock date right back to the beginning of everything, and there's nothing like a good apocalypse to bring out the philosopher in us all. They're called asteroids when they're up there in the vacuum, just tumbling along. Once they hit a planet's atmosphere, then they're meteors, and most of them just burn up to nothing before they hit the ground. 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's a lot of heat to take.  
  
"But as you all know, our meteor is seven yards wide and the chances of it burning up before it crashes into Maurice's anti-asteroid rocket launcher - and by the way, Maurice, kudos to you for raging against the dying of the light - well, folks, stranger things have happened, but not often to meteorites this size.  
  
"For those of you staying for the end, Holling and Shelly are putting on an Apocalypse Day feast. Doors opened at dawn, so head on over to the Brick."  
  
Chris leaned back from the mic and hit the switch on Johnny Cash's classic _The Man Comes Around_.  
  
*  
  
Out by a lake so obscure that it had no name, Joel Fleischman threw another armful into a box. Books thumped down, an egg whisk clattered against a lamp, and an unopened bar of soap bounced onto the floor and under the table. Joel didn’t go looking for it. He picked up the rattling box and ran out to his truck.  
  
The rear wheels fishtailed as he sped toward town.  
  
*  
  
Maurice crashed through the door at KBHR, NASA cap jammed over his eyes and a rip in the sleeve of his coat.  
  
"Chris, I need you to come out to the base and help me out with the trajectories on the missiles."  
  
Chris hit the switch on The Doors' _The End_ and leaned back in his chair. "Aw, Maurice, I'm not really your man for that. You've been around way more rocket launches than I have."  
  
"Chris, being an astronaut is one thing. Physics is quite another, and you're the best thing we have to a ballistics man around here. A rocket launcher may not be a trebuchet, but the principle is the same."  
  
"Nah, Maurice, it's not like that at all. To hit the meteorite at a high enough altitude to disintegrate it, you'd have to know its speed, and the angle of entry, and the wind direction and strength, and the mass of your missiles and what velocity you can fire them at, at least. That's if you could compensate for the Doppler shift. Now, NASA might have the equipment to do that, but we don't. I mean, we only have Holling's telescope to work with here, and it's daylight.  
  
"I don't mean to be a downer, Maurice, and I applaud your efforts to save this town, but I think we're in the hands of the gods here. Either we all die this afternoon in a shower of cosmic glory, or it turns out that Holling's meteor isn't dense enough to survive its swan dive. In which case, Holling's going to be out of food tomorrow, but won't the air taste fresher than you've ever breathed before? Won't your life be that much richer for having stared down the messenger from the dawn of the universe and survived?"  
  
Maurice put a hand on the doorknob. "Son, I don't have time for that kind of talk today. I have a town to save. If you won't help I'll find someone who will. But I won't forget that you refused the front lines. " He pointed a finger at Chris and held his gaze.  
  
"Well, man, that's cool. I'm not really a front lines kind of guy. But hey, I'll put out the call for you, how's that?"  
  
Maurice narrowed his eyes at Chris and left without saying anything more.  
  
Shrugging, Chris flipped the mic back on. "Cicely, your town needs you now. If you're not leaving us for less threatening skies, or cooking up the feast of a lifetime, Maurice could use your help out at his base. Especially if you have any skills that will help aim his missiles at our visitor from outer space."  
  
*  
  
Exasperated, Adam kicked his radio across the room and stomped off toward the ridiculous excuse for a ground defense base these jokers had set up.  
  
*  
  
Joel's truck was only just stationary before he flung open the door and jumped out.  
  
"Marilyn! Marilyn, we've got to go! Come on, get in the truck!"  
  
Marilyn looked slowly up as Joel barreled into his clinic. "Marilyn!"  
  
"Hi, Dr. Fleischman."  
  
Joel ran over to the reception desk, but couldn't bring himself to actually grab her. "How are you just sitting there? There's a ball of fiery death heading right this way at hundreds of miles an hour! We have to get out of here!"  
  
Marilyn shook her head slowly. "Uh-uh."  
  
Joel was so keyed up he was almost dancing from foot to foot. "What do you mean, 'uh-uh'? NASA confirmed it! Holling saw it coming straight at us, seven yards of death that will put a crater in the town big enough to kill the dinosaurs all over again! We have to leave! We all have to leave!"  
  
Marilyn looked up. "I don't want to leave."  
  
"What do you mean, you won't leave? Is this some Indian, tied-to-the-land thing? What?"  
  
"Nothing's going to happen to the town."  
  
"Nothing's, nothing's going to happen to the town? Is that all you have to say? Do you not understand wha- what it means when NASA tracks a collision course? It means there will be a collision! With this town! With this exact room, probably, because that is how my luck goes! Marilyn, please come with me. Please. It will make me happy. Please." Joel made an effort to calm himself down.  
  
"No," she said, looking back down at her knitting.  
  
"Okay, okay, if you come with me, I will ... I will agree to the next crazy thing you want me to do with no argument. Anything."  
  
Marilyn met his eyes calmly. "It's not going to hit us, Dr. Fleischman."  
  
Joel could feel his hands tugging at his hair, without his conscious control. "How could you possibly know that?"  
  
"I just do."  
  
Joel stared at her with despair. "Okay. Okay. Well, I'm going to and find O'Connell, and then I'll be back."  
  
Marilyn went back to her knitting.  
  
Leaving his clinic office, Joel almost collided with Ed, who was carrying his video camera.  
  
"Hi, Dr. Fleischman," he said, smiling.  
  
"Ed! Don't tell me you believe this "nothing's going to happen to the town" line as well? Come on, get in my truck, we're getting out of here as soon as I can find O'Connell."  
  
"Oh, no, Dr. Fleischman, I'm making a film about the almost-end of Cicely. I'm going to stay right here." He smiled calmly at Joel and patted his camera.  
  
"So, you do believe that the meteor is going to hit us?"  
  
"Well, no, Dr. Fleischman, it's not going to hit us, but it's going to come real close. And no one has filmed a near-apocalyptic moment with a meteor before. It's going to be great footage. I think I could really make something of it." Ed nodded happily.  
  
Joel stared at him.  
  
Ed brought the camera up to point at Joel. "So, Dr. Fleischman, would you say a few words about your feelings on the meteor that's heading our way right now?"  
  
Joel stared at Ed for a beat longer, and he his hands crept up to tug at his hair again. "Ed, I don't know what it is about you people and not understanding what it means when NASA says, 'Seven yard wide asteroid on a collision course with your town, evacuate now!'  
  
"We have to get out of here! Right now! If we leave now we could get out of the impact zone before it hits! Come on, Ed, how are you going to get your famous footage to Hollywood if it's burned to a fiery crisp with the rest of the town?"  
  
Ed nodded enthusiastically to Joel from behind the camera. "Oh, like I said, Dr. Fleischman, Holling's meteor isn't really going to hit us. It's okay, you don't have to leave."  
  
Joel felt like screaming. "Fine! Fine! Don't say I didn't try to save you people. Good luck with your apocalypse!"  
  
He ran back to his truck, but Ed's voice stopped him. "Oh, Maggie is over at the Brick."  
  
With an exasperated look over his shoulder at Ed, and a contradictory hand raised in thanks, Joel changed direction and sprinted over to the Brick. It was still early, really not much past dawn, but the door to the bar was open and Joel could hear the party going on inside when he was still ten steps from the entrance.  
  
Bursting through the door, he skidded to a stop in surprise. His mouth fell open in shock. The room was full to bursting. Someone had made a banner that hung over the loaded buffet table, reading, "Happy Apocalypse!" in cheerful purple letters. Shelly, dressed in a bright pink and blue print shirt and sparkling comet earrings, gave him a wide smile and a wave from behind the bar, where she was serving ... Joel squinted and identified purple cocktails. With little yellow umbrellas.  
  
Holling was grilling mountains of steaks and salmon on a hot plate that looked to have been dragged into the bar from someone's camping stash. He waved his tongs at Joel.  
  
Dave bustled out of the kitchen, carrying two heaping bowls of fried potatoes, and deposited them on the groaning buffet table, calling a greeting as he caught sight of Joel. He nodded back absently, managing to close his mouth in the meantime.  
  
Ruth-Anne came over and put a hand on Joel's arm. "Honey marinated grouse drumstick, Joel?" she asked, holding a plate out.  
  
Giving up, Joel felt his shoulders slump under his heavy coat. "Sure, Ruth-Anne. Why not. Let's eat and be merry while hundreds of tons of death hurtle towards us. Fine." He took the grouse.  
  
Ruth-Anne smiled understandingly and patted his arm. "That's the idea, Joel."  
  
"But aren't you going to leave? Couldn't you go and stay with one of your sons?" Joel spoke through a mouthful of grouse - the marinade really was pretty good.  
  
"Oh, no. I'm 75 years old, and this is my home. Besides," she said, leaning in conspiratorially, "I've always wanted to see a meteorite up close, ever since Rudy told me about the Tunguska event that happened in 1908. I've always liked the meteor theory, and I think the comet theory is a bunch of baloney. And let's not even discuss the people who think it was exploding geysers from below the planet's crust. I don't know where some people get their ideas, Joel." Ruth-Anne shook her head.  
  
"Uh, right," said Joel. "Say, have you seen O'Connell?"  
  
Ruth-Anne looked around. "She was here, just before. Said she really liked Shelly's smoked popcorn slice. Maybe Holling knows?"  
  
"Thanks, Ruth-Anne," said Joel, heading over to the smoky grill and raising his mostly-clean grouse bone to her in salute.  
  
"Hi, Joel," Holling said warmly. "Enjoying the grouse?"  
  
"Yeah, Holling, it's great. Excellent marinade."  
  
"Oh, yes, that's my special recipe. I only pull it out for a real celebration. Say, you look a little bit wild around the eyes. Would you care for a moose steak to settle your stomach?"  
  
Joel blinked and shook his head slightly to try to clear it. "No, thanks. See, what I wanted to know was, when you first saw the meteor that's coming to kill us all, was your first thought to, say, take your wife and get out of town to save both your lives, or to throw a party to celebrate our impending doom?" Joel could hear his voice rising to a near-scream again, but under the circumstances he thought it could be excused.  
  
"I mean, Holling, you're a leader in this community, don't you think you have a responsibility to model sensible behavior? Don't you think that by throwing an apocalypse party and encouraging everyone to be here in your bar, rather than hightailing it out of town in order to avoid mass death and destruction, you're letting down your side?"  
  
Holling leaned back a little behind his grill. "Well, Joel, no I don't. Cicely is a frontier town, and we face everything that nature has to offer every day. It hasn't killed us yet, and I think we owe it to the town not to jump ship like fleeing rats at the first hint of danger."  
  
Joel open and closed his mouth, but nothing came out.  
  
"Besides," continued Holling, pointing the tongs at Joel, "Marilyn says that my meteor won't hit us anyway. But it should be a great light show."  
  
"Marilyn says, is that it?" Joel clutched at his head again, forgetting the grouse bone and almost poking himself in the eye. "You are all crazy. All of you. I thought I was resigned to that fact a long time ago, but no. No, this is a new level of crazy. You are a suicide cult, that's what you are. A town-wide suicide cult. I am ethically opposed to suicide cults, but there is only so much one man's logic can do in the face of this much ... this much crazy. Fine, whatever. Happy apocalypse, Holling, it's been nice knowing you. Give me a salmon steak and I'll be on my way."  
  
Silently, Holling handed over a portion on a paper plate.  
  
Joel didn't quite snatch the plate, but admittedly, he could have accepted it more politely. "And have you seen O'Connell? I still have some hope that she at least retains some grasp on rationality."  
  
"She headed out to Maurice's base just now, Joel. Enjoy your salmon."  
  
*  
  
Looking out his window at the street, Chris watched Joel's truck go speeding by.  
  
"Just a public service announcement, anyone on the road out to Maurice's should clear the way, because Dr. Joel Fleischman is coming through and he seems to be in a hurry. Drive safe, Joel.  
  
"You know, the literal meaning of 'apocalypse', going back to the time of the ancient Greeks, is to reveal. To throw back the covers. To show, if you will, the truth of the world. I think there's something in that for all of us. Who you are today, in this moment, with the knowledge that speeding towards you is a hunk of rock older than the ground you're standing on, well, these are the defining moments for us all.  
  
"Jung said that the apocalypse archetype was about the discovery of the true self, for individuals and for communities. I like to think that's what we have here today, people of Cicely. A chance to define for ourselves who we are as a town.  
  
"Now here's one for our extraterrestrial visitor."  
  
Chris hit the switch on Jerry Lewis' _Great Balls of Fire_ and leaned back in his chair.  
  
  
*  
  
Joel pulled into Maurice's "base" in a spray of debris, narrowly avoiding Ed, who was walking slowly by with his camera pressed to his face. He nodded to Joel, and kept walking, camera trained on the sky.  
  
The base wasn't much. A cleared patch of ground, and a concrete bunker dug into it. The concrete was old and cracked.  
  
Joel jumped out and slammed his truck door. "O'Connell! O'Connell, you'd better be here!"  
  
Maggie's dark head popped out of the top of the bunker. "What do you want, Fleischman? Unless you're going to help us calculate wind shear, you're not any help out here."  
  
"O'Connell, I came out here to see if you at least understood that we need to leave this town before we are all burned up pancakes on the ground. Get in my truck, or get in your plane, but surely you don't believe it's safe to stay here! I can't get anyone else to see sense, they're all a big group of concentrated crazy, but you're a pilot, O'Connell! You're the soul of practicality! You can see we're all going to die, right?"  
  
O'Connell stared at him. "Wow, Fleischman, if you don't stop to take a breath you're not even going to last until Holling's meteor gets here." Her eyes traveled to his hand. "Hey, is that one of his salmon steaks you're holding?"  
  
"What?" Joel looked at his hand. Somehow, he was still holding the salmon in a folded up paper plate. "Yeah, I guess it is." He took a bite.  
  
"Well, give it here, I'm famished," O'Connell said, holding her hand out imperiously. "I don't even care that your disgusting teeth have touched it, I'm that hungry."  
  
Joel walked over to hand her the salmon without really deciding to do so. "Disgusting? My teeth are not disgusting, I have excellent dental hygiene. And anyway I know for a fact that you already raided Holling's apocalypse feast this morning. That can't have been more than an hour ago. How can you be that hungry?"  
  
"Fleischman, you try hauling around Cold War era missiles, and then you tell me. Do you have any idea what those things weigh?"  
  
"You know, yesterday I might have been surprised by that statement, but you know what? Today, today I believe you. I don't even care where Maurice got Cold War missiles from. I don't even care if he stole them from the Russians! I mean, if he did and they're leaking radiation all over you as we speak, well, that won't matter for long, will it? Because," Joel yelled, giving up completely, " _flaming tons of rock are about to kill us all!_ "  
  
"That's just typical, isn't it. Disaster threatens, and all you can do is run around having hysterics like a... like a scared little boy. A little rain, and you reach for a snorkel. First sign of a little discomfort and you want to leave town. Well, Cicely isn't going to let you out of your contract just because of a meteor, you... you _deserter_!" O'Connell glared at him and took a huge bite out of the salmon steak.  
  
Joel threw his arms in the air. "What is it that you want me to do, O'Connell? Huh? Huh? Use my heretofore hidden magic powers to disappear an asteroid? Take it out for a drink and convince it to stay in space? Set up triage in the afterlife when we're all dead? What? I am genuinely asking you here, because I do not get it. What is so incomprehensible about the idea of just not being here when it hits?"  
  
"Let me tell you something," Maggie said, pointing a finger at Joel. "You do not run out on your home when it needs you. This town is my home, and if I can save it I will. Besides," she lowered her tone, "Marilyn says it's not going to hit us anyway. I just wanted to do something useful so I came out to help Maurice."  
  
Joel looked up at the sky despairingly. "This is a cult. And you've elected Marilyn as your prophet."  
  
"Shut up, Fleischman, and do something useful. You're not leaving, are you."  
  
Joel's shoulders slumped. "I'm not leaving. Why am I not leaving?"  
  
Maggie grinned down at him. "You've never wanted anything more in your life than to come this close to an amazing experience. Come on, Fleischman, how many people get to see a meteor event up close? It's going to be incredible."  
  
*  
  
Joel was straining to push the dark green, boxy, incredibly heavy missile launcher to where Maggie insisted it had to be.  
  
“O’Connell, a little help here?” Joel panted.  
  
“Oh, fine,” she said, pitching in. “Just don’t knock it into anything.” Together they struggled to shift the launcher another foot across the bunker.  
  
"No, no, no, no, _no_!" It was the unwelcome, entirely unexpected, but familiar sound of Adam's bellow, and Joel snapped upright. "Get your fumbling, amateur hands _off of that_!"  
  
Joel stepped back and raised his hands above his head. Maggie stepped back as well, startled by Adam's sudden entrance.  
  
"It's like watching children play with matches. I don't know how you haven't already blown us all sky-high. Dumb luck is all it is. Do you _know_ how unstable those things are?"  
  
"Unstable?" Joel said in alarm, looking at Maggie with wide eyes, hands still in the air as if he'd forgotten to lower them.  
  
"Well, sure, Fleischman, they're probably forty years old," she said, shrugging. "That's why you shouldn't knock them into anything."  
  
"That's why you shouldn't _touch_ them, unless you're a qualified expert," said Adam mulishly, leaning toward Maggie and pointing a finger at her. "I never knew a pilot who didn't think their little light plane license made them a hot shot fighter pilot just moonlighting as a civilian."  
  
Maggie started to sputter indignantly. Joel couldn't help a smirk at seeing Adam's belligerence directed at someone else for a change.  
  
"No," barked Adam, cutting Maggie off. "Just ... just get out of here and let me handle this." He turned his back on them both and pulled what looked like hand-drawn schematics out of his back pocket, smoothing them out over the launcher box.  
  
"Wait a second," said Joel, clearly unable to help himself. "How are you an expert in handling anti-aircraft missiles? You're a ... you're a chef who lives in a hut in the middle of Alaska."  
  
Joel took a step back as Adam turned slowly around to fix Joel with an incredulous stare. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that you were the local judge of who is qualified to do what. Let me apologize for not submitting my life resume to you already. I mean that sincerely. If I had, I'd have had to kill you by now, and then maybe," Adam yelled, "I could get on with saving this town. Isn't that what you've been having hysterics about all morning? Is that all _right_ with you, Mr. Career Officer?"  
  
Joel raised his hands and backed away until his back hit the ladder out of the bunker. "Okay. Okay. You just ... have fun with your missiles. Happy apocalypse, Adam." Joel turned and climbed quickly up the ladder.  
  
He emerged to find Maurice talking to Ed while the camera rolled.  
  
"Ah, here's one of my fine missile crew now," said Maurice expansively, turning to direct the camera's focus to Joel as he stepped down to the ground. Maurice did a double take. "Joel? Well, good for you, son. I thought you would have been heading for the hills by now." He laughed.  
  
"Well, thanks, Maurice. I'm not ashamed to say that I would, actually, have left the probable site of a meteor strike if I could, but as it seems that's impossible, I've decided to accept my fate."  
  
Maggie's head and shoulders appeared on the top of the ladder. She rolled her eyes and climbed out of the bunker to stand beside Joel.  
  
"And Maggie O'Connell," said Maurice for the camera. "Our resident pilot, who's volunteered to help get our missile trajectories set up right."  
  
"Well actually, Maurice," said Maggie, "Adam says he has it all under control. He chased us out of there."  
  
Maurice stood up straighter. "Adam is here? Well, now, that's some good news. I think we'll be all right after all."  
  
Maggie looked deflated.  
  
"Now, now, Maggie, don't take it hard. It's not your fault you're not a CIA weapons expert. These things take time to learn."  
  
Maggie bristled, and Joel patted her comfortingly on the arm. She shook him off.  
  
Behind the camera, Ed asked, "So, Maurice, tell us how your plan to save the town will work."  
  
Maurice pushed out his chest. "Well, Ed, as you know, yesterday night Holling spotted an asteroid through his telescope, and it was heading right at him. All glowing purple, he said.  
  
"So when Holling came to tell me about it, I got in touch with my contacts at NASA," Maurice tugged at his ball cap. "They confirmed early this morning that Holling's asteroid was going to enter the atmosphere on a collision course with Cicely, Alaska. The meteor is seven yards wide and so far, it doesn't seem to be burning up on its own.  
  
"So," Maurice paused for effect, "I immediately put my emergency plan into action, and this old base I've had sitting here in case we ever had to defend ourselves will come in useful."  
  
"Uh huh," said Ed encouragingly.  
  
"We’re going to blow that meteor right out of the sky. We don't have the kind of radar equipment we really need for a target high in the atmosphere, and our ordinance is old and outdated. We have ballistic missiles only, and no guidance systems, so we're going to have to get our aim just right. We only get one shot at this."  
  
Maurice looked meaningfully into the camera. "But we're going to make it count."  
  
Ed swung the camera down off his shoulder and grinned. "That was great, Maurice!"  
  
"Oh, no problem, Ed. Happy to help with documenting this milestone day for Cicely."  
  
"Well, thanks, Maurice," Ed said, nodding. "I'm just going to get some footage of the base, and then I'll interview Adam. I'll see you around." Ed walked off.  
  
Maurice turned to Maggie and Joel. "Well, now that Adam's here, you two may as well go back to town."  
  
"Fine," said Joel, clearly happy to be where Adam was not.  
  
"Nah, I think I'll stick around," said Maggie, her feelings still obviously hurt.  
  
Maurice shrugged and headed around to the bunker's tunnel entrance.  
  
*  
  
It was two o’clock, and the whole town was gathered by the lake to watch the meteor come in. As Joel stood with Chris, he saw Maurice pull up in his truck, and Maggie jump out the passenger side.  
  
“Well, that should be everyone,” Chris said, looking ecstatic. Joel looked around at the crowd. Shelly, standing close beside Holling, her comet earrings competing with her smile for brightness. Marilyn, looking quietly at the sky with a circle of space around her. Ruth-Anne, smiling into the camera for Ed. Maggie, striding towards him.  
  
"This is, this is not a controlled piano fling, this is a whole town - hundreds of people - all standing in the path of probable death and smiling up at it. Doesn't this strike you as more than a little creepy?"  
  
"Well, Joel, not really. Humans are fascinated by death and destruction because paradoxically, it’s those moments when we feel most alive. This is a transformational moment for every person in this crowd, and none of these people would miss it for the world. I sure wouldn’t.  
  
“Kirkegaard said, ‘The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.’  
  
“This event, Joel, this unveiling that Apocalypse brings us, is the ultimate antidote to losing one’s self. Embrace it, brother.”  
  
Then there was a flash in the sky, a pause and then a sonic boom, and the meteorite was visible. Hurtling toward them, it glowed purple. Cicely’s people murmured in awe, their eyes tracking the meteorite’s path. It was enormous, and it was trailing a glittering cloud.  
  
“It’s beautiful,” said Shelly reverently.  
  
“It’s huge,” said Joel, marveling.  
  
A second sonic boom sounded, and what was unmistakably a missile streaked across the sky on a low trajectory. A gasp rose up from the crowd. Maurice’s eyes tracked the missile anxiously.  
  
His eyes widened when it exploded prematurely, without impacting the meteorite. Maggie’s hand crept into Joel’s, and he held it tightly.  
  
The meteorite’s path intersected the missile’s fireball. There was a bright flash, and Joel flung up an arm to cover his eyes. There was a noise like firecrackers at Chinese New Year, and squinting through the afterimage of light in his eyes, Joel thought he saw the shape of an enormous raven fly away from the place where the two projectiles had met.  
  
The air was sparkling, and the meteorite was gone. Only pieces of rock the size of fists could be seem thumping down into and around the lake.  
  
Chris ran forward to pick one up, and dropped it again as he burned his hand. Not seeming to care, he crouched down to look at the rock and the ground, his shoulders and hair sparkling as the rain of golden dust settled on him.  
  
He looked up, grinning. “Fool’s gold, and maybe diamonds.” Wrapping the sleeve of his coat around the rock, he held it up for the town to see. “It rained diamonds, Cicely!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Isis for excellent beta help! 
> 
> When researching for this fic, I discovered to my surprise that there were anti-aircraft land to air missile bases in Alaska, even as close to Cicely’s given location as Fairbanks. They were part of Project Nike during the Cold War. That was fortuitous for my fic, since I didn’t have to invent them. 
> 
> Maurice’s “base”, however, is not one of the original Nike sites. It lacks the original infrastructure and radar towers of the true bases. It’s a fictional, old, run down bunker built during the Cold War by a private citizen, and acquired by Maurice. His missiles and launchers are not actually Russian, but they probably do belong in a museum. They also aren't the Ajax missiles that were used in the Nike sites in Fairbanks. Whether he found them in the bunker when he acquired it or whether he leaned on some old military contacts to get them is up to you. 
> 
> For the rest of my somewhat dubious science, can we agree to chalk it up to Cicely weirdness?


End file.
